700 years in the making: Strade Bianche
Strade Bianche’s white gravel roads carried grain and wine into Siena for 700 years before cyclists ever touched them. Now they host one of cycling’s most dramatic races.
When Strade Bianche rolls into Siena, Italy this weekend, it arrives with a timeless quality far beyond its 19 years as an official event. Born in the modern era of analytics and carbon frame design, it somehow finds its soul in a bygone age. As riders grind up the medieval ramp to the finish at Piazza del Camp—legs dusted white, framed by stone façades unchanged since the 14th century—the past is very much the present here.
South of Siena, the contrast between old and new continues as the peloton races across chalk-white farm roads through the hills of Chianti—the strade bianche (“white roads”) that give the race its name. Once, these were working routes carrying grain and wine into the city. Built from necessity, they now form one of cycling’s most compelling arenas.
Scorched limestone and clay—galestro and alberese—crumble in the dry, cling in the wet, and rise into blinding dust. There is no forgiving surface. Momentum fractures. Gaps open with a slide of the rear wheel, a moment’s hesitation on loose stone. It’s the same soil that grows Tuscany’s defining grape: Sangiovese.
Most grapes simply can’t live with Tuscany’s poor soil. Sangiovese thrives in the struggle. Roots push deep for water. Yields stay low. Flavors concentrate—a signature drawn from the ground itself. Hardship is the point. It makes Chianti Classico unmistakable.
The race mirrors the vineyard. Victory goes to the rider who balances power with restraint, who negotiates with the terrain rather than trying to dominate it. This is a race where the land usually has the final word.
By the final climb into Siena, riders seem sculpted from dust. Helicopters and banners are modern, but the setting is not. That’s what makes Strade Bianche different. The roads were here. The soil was here. The city was here. The race arrived and found everything waiting. It only took 700 years but who’s counting.
Experience the Strade Bianche for yourself in 2027
Join EF Adventures x EF Pro Cycling for an inside view of Strade Bianche. Ride the iconic white roads of Tuscany, taste Chianti’s finest wines at their source, share a Tuscan feast over dinner with the EF Pro Cycling team, and watch cycling’s most dramatic one-day spectacle from a VIP terrace in Siena.
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